‘Do not discriminate our frontliners’

By Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – “Do not discriminate our frontliners because they are the ones facing our enemy, our faceless enemy.”

This was the appeal of Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson amid reports that medical workers of a certain hospital here are being discriminated after it was learned that a COVID-19 patient is in their care.

Lacson said “these are people sacrificing their lives, they are there to take care of the patients.”

He said he received the complaints of some doctors that member of their medical staff were being asked leave their boarding houses.

“This is the worst of the Filipino trait,” Lacson lamented.

He also said that these medical workers are cognizant of the dangers of COVID-19 and they know how to take care of themselves.

“So, I hope that we can be open- minded,” he said.

Based on a letter from Riverside Medical Center Corporate Communications head Chuck Estrella, some of their employees were denied rides by trisikads or jeepneys, after the first COVID-19 positive patient in the region was reported.

Coffee shops have also reportedly denied entry to Riverside medical staff and some were reportedly even verbally harassed by police officers.

There were also reports that some landlords and their neighbors are ordering Riverside staff to vacate their apartments and boarding houses for fear of possible contamination.

“After all the sacrifices they make, including risking their lives, this is what we expect them to face?” Estrella said.

In another letter, Dr. Connie Rose Benjamin of the Philippine College of Physicians-Negros Occidental urged Lacson to intervene in the matter saying not all medical personnel in the hospital were exposed to the COVID-19 patient.

Benjamin also pointed out that even before the test result came out, the patient had already been placed in an isolation room, and the medical staff who were exposed to the patient are already placed on quarantine.

Benjamin further pointed out that the public should stop discriminating medical workers, as they also need mental and emotional support.